Those of you sophisticated enough to read this, your Most Important Blog... Ever, regularly, will remember a few months ago, I noticed one of those Google-powered targeted ads suggesting that I go look for terrorism on eBay.
The way these Google ads work is pretty simple. Some amazing computer programs scan the webpage you're looking at (or the words you searched with) for special words. If those key words match up with an advertiser's message, then they show you a custom-made link to that advertiser's site. If you click on it, the advertiser pays Google something like a billion dollars. The idea is to make the ads you see more relevant to what you're doing on the web and thus you, the consumer, will be more likely to have interest in the ad. Fine idea, right?
Well, here's yet another great moment in targeted advertising. Saw this on a news webpage today. Awesome. Way to go, eBay!
Palestinian Sale
- New & used Palestinian. Check out the deals now!
www.eBay.com
The way these Google ads work is pretty simple. Some amazing computer programs scan the webpage you're looking at (or the words you searched with) for special words. If those key words match up with an advertiser's message, then they show you a custom-made link to that advertiser's site. If you click on it, the advertiser pays Google something like a billion dollars. The idea is to make the ads you see more relevant to what you're doing on the web and thus you, the consumer, will be more likely to have interest in the ad. Fine idea, right?
Well, here's yet another great moment in targeted advertising. Saw this on a news webpage today. Awesome. Way to go, eBay!
Palestinian Sale
- New & used Palestinian. Check out the deals now!
www.eBay.com
That's actually just Ebay buying a ton of random keywords and having an algorithm that automatically generates phrases such as "Low Priced $STRING" or "Buy $STRING at Ebay" or "New & Used $STRING." The link is then also automatically generated as a search for that product. Try searching for any other proper noun (ever search for "Erik" and see what Ebay is selling? I knew you sold yourself, I didn't know it was at auction) and you will get the same thing. That includes countries, names, titles, etc...
Since Google sells adwords at auction, more frequently searched for words go for larger amounts of money. Ebay, which has marketing cash to burn, is just looking for exposure, so they buy terrorism, which is a common search term, and pay a premium for it, but they are also buying thousands of other terms, so they don't hand craft a message for each one. The trick with buying words like "terrorism" or "palestinian" is that they are searched for a lot, but they aren't advertised on a lot because people don't sell products that have to do with them. That means, because of the auction system, Ebay gets the exposures/clicks at a steal compared to other more popular terms like "computer."
Because of all this, your search for for "Palestinian" generates the same thing as a search for "Israeli" or "Mongolian" or "Lithuanian." It's just EBay trying to advertise everywhere. Sometimes, they'll even buy multiple ads for the same keyword. They're cheap terms for the amount of exposure they generate, so Ebay buys lots of them.
Now, that being said, I have to go buy a New or Used Latvian on Ebay to do my laundry....